Ender-borns, the Ender-sister, and Ender-mates
by vamprav
Summary: In hind sight Duncan really shouldn't have planted that nuke under Rythian's base. Then he wouldn't have to deal with endermen, a dragon, three ender-borns, the search for an ender-sister, and a super powered Sjin.
1. prologue

_ Zoey…_

_ She was his. She belonged to him eternally. No one would take an ender-born's heart-sister._

"I-I'll see you around." Zoey said as she stood in the mouth of the hole that led to the nuke under Blackrock Castle. "I'm pretty sure of that… 95 percent sure of that." She turned to look down into the hole. She flew down a bit and Rythian approached the hole.

"Okay." He said flatly, trying to hide the choked up feeling in the bottom of his throat. "Please, please, please, be careful." He begged.

There was a pause as the ender-mage took a deep breath and Zoey looked up at him. "You know how I feel about you. Don't risk anything." He emphasized. "It's just a castle."

"Careful… careful is… careful is my middle name." The girl said haltingly. "So-"there was another pause, "No, wait it isn't. But, I mean careful is… is… I'll be fine!" She reassured.

Rythian swallowed heavily. He really didn't want Zoey doing this. 'It's just a castle. It doesn't matter, not like you do.' He thought to himself.

"Look and," Zoey glanced down into the hole, "like no matter what happens, I'll- I'll figure something out. It'll be fine."

The mage nodded nervously. "Okay."

"It'll be fine." Zoey repeated, it sounded like she was trying to reassure herself. "It'll be fine."

"Alright I trust you." The boy said.

"It'll be fine. Thrust me." She said as she descended into the hole.

"Alright I'll trust you." He said sulkily.

"Let's go. Whoa!" She said.

Rythian smiled and started to walk away, Zoey was back to her normal over exuberant self. She paused realizing there was something wrong with that sentence. "I mean I'll go! You go as well but in the other direction." She said as she went all the way down into the hole.

"I'll see you Zoey." Her companion yelled as he took off from the ground and turned away.

"Bye, Ryth-ian." She called back haltingly she sounded choked up. "I'll be back! I promise."

Rythian's instincts tingled but he ignored them there was probably an enderman nearby that he would have to smite.

…

It was dark outside and raining but Zoey didn't notice. She was more focused on the bomb under her house.

"Okay, Nukey!" She called to the force-field encased nuke. "You and me have a date with a wire cutter!"

It was false cheerfulness and she knew it but it was the only thing giving her courage right now.

"Which is… quite weird… actually." She said as the sentence registered in her head. She snapped out of the thought quickly though.

"Okay, I lied," she said laughingly, "it's not a date I'm defusing the heck out of you." The nervousness was starting to show on her face. "Sorry, um… tell you what."

She rummaged through her inventory and pulled out the signal jammer. "I'm gonna plonk that jammer down. Fishton," she said to the cooked fish in her hand, "if you just jump on that jammer and absorb that."

Zoey put the jammer down on the floor. "There we go massive, monster, Mama- Jamma. There we go."

She through the fish at the jammer and covered her eyes. "Fishton, Fishton you on that? Oh," She said looking at the now live fish on the floor, "you look, oow. That's fine, that's fine."

The mushroom girl turned back to the jammer. "Um what was the fre-"she snapped her fingers, "1337, there we go." She said as she typed it in.

"Tapped into that," she said, chewing on her hair. She turned to the force-field and began to get to work. "Loop that and, ffft, that worked." She sounded mildly surprised. "That's awesome, so now I just need… whoa."

Zoey looked at the sercutry for the bomb. "Okay, um, tell you what," she turned to the fish on the floor, "let's… Fishton, do you remember what wire it was?" She croaked.

"Uh, it was- it was the red… one." She said slowly. "So I'll… It was either the red one or the blue one." Her voice was panicky and rapid with nerves. "One of those."

"Um," she said bighting her lip, "it's not the yellow one, so. Tell you what, I'll just move that yellow wire over to-"Click. "Oooh, it clicked. I don't know what that was. Um." The panic was starting to take over.

"Fishton, pass me the wire cutters," the fish passed her the wire cutters. They were both sweeting by now, "Um, I'm gonna cut this one." She pointed to the red wire.

"Yeah the red one. Red one. Red is the color of, mushrooms. So, yeah," Her voice squeaked, "that's fine, that's fine."

Zoey was starting to get out of breath. "Fishton, you ready. Totally nothing bad gonna happen." She cut the wire with her eyes squeezed shut.

"Did that do something?" She asked. Beep! "Oooh, it's beeping." She said panicked.

Zoey turned to the fish. "Fishton, it's beeping. Fish- oh." She rushed around the concrete cube trying to get to whatever was beeping. "Ah," she stopped, "I- oh- ah- oh crickey," She glanced around at everything.

"Rythian!" She called in an almost whisper as the machines kept beeping. She whimpered. "I'm sure Rythian's not here." Tears gathered in her eyes.

"Rythian, I miss you." The fuse to the nuke ignited. "Rythian, I need you right now. Nuke is about to explode." She whined.

The fuse burned out.

"Rythian, I-"

**_BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!_**

…

Rythian dropped his mug and rushed for the door of the Crooked Caper.

"Rythian, wha' was tha'" The scots-man behind the bar.

"Zoey!" Rythain yelled as he took off from the ground, not paying attention to his Scottish friend.

Rythain flew as fast as he could but when he arrived at the castle there was nothing left. The entire front of the building was blown out and the sides just weren't there. Rythain stood and stared at the castle for a few minutes letting the information sink in. He rushed forward over the front and stared down into the pit that had once been his home. There was nothing left and Zoey had been in the center of that explosion.

"ZOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!"


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Duncan's eyes widened as Rythian advanced on him. He had heard Blackrock explode from his base, everyone had heard the shock wave, but Duncan hadn't thought that Rythian had gone after the bomb. He'd thought Rythian had abandon the castle and then the bomb had exploded due to faulty wiring or something.

Rythian looked _PISSED_!

Duncan had been walking around doing… something, but then Rythian had showed up in all his powerful fury and now he was vulnerable.

"M-m-mercy." Duncan managed to squeak out as he dropped his mining laser. He was defenseless and his armor wasn't charged up, so it was so much scrap metal.

"You dare to take what is mine from me... " Rythian growled under his breathe, "You dare to destroy everything I care for..." the mage began to float from the ground, anger radiated from his every pore, "She was everything and now she's gone, and you dare to ASK FOR MERCY!"

Duncan's eyes widened – oh dear lord he'd blown up Zoey, no wonder the mage was pissed beyond reason- and he scuttled away from the angry man in front of him. "I- I didn't mean-"

"YES YOU DID!" Rythian screamed, a dragon's rage beginning to creep into his voice. "YOU KNEW SHE WAS MINE! YOU KNEW I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT TECNOLOGY! YOU WERE THE ONE WHO SHOWED HER THE WAY TO DEAL WITH FORCE FIELDS! SHE WAS MINE, SHE BELONGED TO ME! AND YOU DIDN'T THINK THAT SHE WOULD TRY AND SAVE OUR HOUSE! HER CASTLE! MY HOME!"

He raised his arm and Duncan was too scared to move out of the way of the purple power gathering around the mage's palm. He did sort of deserve this as well, he'd essentially killed the man's reason to live.

"Oy! Bro, what'cha think you're doing?" A voice called from a tree nearby. "He didn't mean to kill the ender-sister."

Rythian dropped his hand and turned to look up into the tree. A boy was standing on one of the branches head cocked slightly to the right. He was about Rythian's height with the same glowing purple eyes. The boy had a large, toothy grin on his face as he leaned against the trunk of the tree, little bits of twig sticking out of his ender-man black hair to complete his rogue-like appearance.

"Herron." Rythian said and nodded.

Duncan began to get to his feet cautiously. Whoever this newcomer was he knew the ender-mage and that alone was enough to make him wary. If they were friends –the newcomer would be friends with Zoey also - then this Herron would want to kill him as well for what he had done and if they were enemies Duncan might get caught in the cross-fire as they tried to kill each other.

"Why are you here, Herron?" Rythian asked past gritted teeth. "You rarely leave those tunnles of yours." He wanted the scientist dead now and the boy in the tree was distracting him from this goal.

Herron snorted. "I could ask you the same thing, Bro. You don't leave that castle of yours for anything besides Zoey asking for supplies." Herron said as he began to pick bits of leaf-matter out of his hair and then froze, that was the wrong thing to say to the mourning ender-born.

"SHE'S GONE! BLACKROCK'S GONE! ALL BECAUSE OF _HIM_!" Rythian yelled as he turned his attention back to Duncan. The scientist cringed away from the angry mage.

Rythian's voice went low and horse then. "It's bad enough _he_ destroyed the old world! Destroyed all my power, everything I'd worked for,_ her_ mushroom village. IS NOTHING SACRID TO THES PEOPLE WHO PRACTICE _SCIENCE_!"

Herron was suddenly there, right next to the angry ender-born. "Ryth, just think this over." He said, trying to sooth the ender-born.

"There are very few things that will do more than wound an ender-sister. Fire, that's just a matter of getting a new body or healing the damage. Ice, again, just repairing the frostbite. Poison, nothing. Suffocation, we call survive without air. Starvation, Ender-bane, Ender-death, Ender-smite, and death in the End by ender-man are the only known ways." The boy whispered into his brother's ear.

"She wasn't in the End, she didn't starve, and I'm pretty sure we still have our weapons, unless you've lost Ender-bane, because I have Ender-death right here," Herron flashed the gun at his waste, "Dorian still has Ender-smite strapped to his back, I checked before I came to talk to you."

"She was in the middle of a nuclear blast, trying to defuse a bomb that _he_ built under my castle." Rythian said, thrusting his finger at the panicked scientist

Herron sighed, "Bro, he's not to blame for this." He said with sadness in his eyes. He didn't enjoy seeing his brother this deep in grief. "The nuke was a precaution he took to defend himself, he didn't know Zoey was going to try and defuse it. He thought she was on her own, you know how Zoey is - she could convince you that the sky was made of icicles if she wanted to. Besides, we miss you, brother, we haven't seen you since right after Zoey left with Teep after Sjin kidnapped him."

"But-"Rythian started to say.

"No, 'buts', Ry-ry, Dorian has been trying but he can't keep an eye on you when you don't go out under clear skies. We were only able to find you by sheer dumb luck, the cloud cover moved away for a second and D told me you were here. Besides the pretty, blonde human's already run off, already."

"What?!" Rythian exclaimed and turned to the place where the scientist had been just seconds before. He growled under his breath as he searched for Duncan along the hilly landscape.

The scientist who had planted the nuke in Rythian's castle was nowhere in sight.

Rythian shreaked in rage.

…

As soon a Duncan got back to his castle he rushed up to the force-field controls. Nothing was damaged, thank Notch. He activated the force-field and leaned against the wall.

He let out a long breath and sank down to the floor, that had been very, very close and he'd lost the mining laser, it had been his favorite.

Rythian was going to _kill_ him for killing Zoey. Well, if he could find him.

Then again Duncan needed to eat at some point and condenser food tasted like whatever you put into it. The last time Duncan had had condenser food it had tasted like dirt, stone, and spider-eyes. He shivered, that hadn't been the slightest bit pleasant.

Plus he needed books, something so that he could read up on human's with purple eyes, no one else had them besides Rythian and that other boy – Herron. There were probably a few out there about minecraftian species of humans but the purple-eyed humans, whatever they were might not be in that book.

Duncan should probably check out a book on the End or ender-men. He remembered the black-haired boy saying a word that made him pause, "ender-sister". What was that?

Herron had sounded like he was talking about Zoey. But that made no sense what so ever. Zoey didn't asosiate with ender-men.

But ender-men… had… purple-eyes!

…

A cloaked figure gazed at the desert. "Alright then. Time to get moving."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Dorian was a tan, blonde, and purple-eyed boy who wore a pure white shirt and sweatpants most of the time. He was currently sitting on a cloud and watched Rythian talking to Herron.

He wanted his brother back. He wanted Rythian to snap out of this self-destructive, completely idiotic, and outright suicidal mindset of his and help them try and find their new sister.

Rythian was being an idiot. What was he thinking going after the blonde-haired scientist?!

Lalna (aka Livid coffee or Duncan) had many friends and allies that would go after his brother if the scientist was killed, weather it was permanent or not.

And, knowing Dorian's younger brother he would have made the death of the scientist permanent. The temper on that boy could scorch the skin of a pig-man off of their bones and tendons.

"Come on, Herron. Calm him down. He'll be fine if he calms down. You know how he is when he's angry." Dorian said.

Rythian had always been a naturally strong willed person, he was very hard to anger but once he angered him you had better watch out because he wasn't calming down any time soon. He wasn't easy to become friends with but he was very trusting once you became his friend. If you betrayed him, again, you had better watch out because he would stop at nothing to get you back for it.

"SHE'S GONE! DEAD!" Rythian's voice carried up to Dorian on a rather strong breeze that had been weakened so much by the weight of the shout that it had to exchange the next shout from Herron with an updraft.

"DORIAN CAN STILL FEEL HER PULSE, YOU IMBASILL!"

…

Sjin glanced up from the pit he was digging around Sips Co. He thought he had heard someone yell something in the distance. But it hadn't sounded like Sips so it should be fine for him to ignore the shout, he didn't have to worry about it.

He looked back down at the dirt under his feet and planted the shovel back in the soil.

Clink!

What was that? It had sounded like some sort of metal at the end of his shovel… Maybe if it was gold Sips would let him sleep in a bed tonight!

Sjin through away the shovel and dug at the ground with his bare hands until he uncovered _it_.

_It_ was a crown, a shiny, silver, beautiful, curly crown. _It_ was beautiful. _It_ had a blazing red gem in the shape of a teardrop set in the center.

_'Sjin, Sjin.'_ The crown whispered to the human.

Sjin's eyes lit up with an unnatural light as red as blood. _It_ was beautiful, and _it_ was his now, all his. No one else could have the privilege to even _touch_ the crown.

_'That's right, Sjin. I'm yours.'_ The crown whispered into Sjin's mind. _It _was smug. The human in front of it was weak minded and would be easy to control.

The crown couldn't wait for their first conquest. _'Put me on, Sjin, I'm yours after all. I belong to you.'_ The crown murmured into the weak human's mind, just quiet enough for the man to think that it was his own thought and not the crown's suggestion.

"Well, I can't just leave it on the ground like this. Someone might come along and steal it. I did find it, finders keepers, after all." Sjin said, seemingly to himself. He took the leather hat he was wearing off.

_'Yes, yes.'_ The crown whispered. _'Do it!'_

Sjin slowly raised the beautiful crown and set_ it_ gently on his own head.

…

Duncan took a deep breath and sighed to himself. He was bored and he'd only been by himself for less than a day. He needed to get out and about, maybe get a message to Lewis or Simon in some way.

No. Rythian could still be out there somewhere, waiting for just this moment when Duncan tried to contact someone.

But he was running out of things to do and his supplies were getting pretty low already. He'd never realized what house arrest would do to someone like him, a scientist with big ideas and an inability to sit still.

It wouldn't take long before his brain self-destructed from idleness, that was part of the reason he had made the rail gun, and the railroad, and the castle, and put a nuke under the mage's base for an unsuspecting Zoey to-

Stop right there!

He couldn't think about Zoey right now, he needed to find a way to make up for the trouble he had caused Rythian.

Yeah, well. It was more than a bit of trouble, he'd kill-

STOP!

That was the other reason he couldn't keep himself in here for too long, the grief and guilt from the death of Zoey would start to eat him up from the inside out if he spent too much time by himself thinking about it.

He needed to apologize to Rythian… for everything.

For blowing up the old world, for destroying his former friends home in the old world, for trapping him in a force-field, for putting a nuke under his base, and, most of all, for killing Zoey.

She had been an innocent, she hadn't deserved to die, and even if Duncan had his suspicions about Rythian's purple eyes she had nothing to do with that. If she did it was unintentional and therefore just association and friendship that connected her to Rythian, she wasn't guilty herself.

And to think, all of this started with a stupid prank. Duncan wasn't even sure if it was him or Sjin that had made the first move on the other. It had been somewhat fun at first, who could get one up on the other, but it had escalated badly and then innocents were caught in the cross-fire.

There was a story that his father used to tell him when he was little about a young man called Trick.

He had spent his time thinking of funny pranks to pull on another man called Fox. Fox had started trouble by taking bits of honey from Trick and then they had started warring with one another and the pranks had become more and more violent with each turn until they had gone too far.

Trick had run after Fox with a burning brand, the brand had caught light to the entire forest where they had lived.

The other people had had enough so they had tied both their hands together so they couldn't move then and threw them out into the desert to fend for themselves without any help from the others.

Duncan's father had always ended the story with a "now don't be the fox in the rabbit hole or the trickster in the deck". Duncan had always replied with an "of course, Papa".

Now though, Duncan felt slightly sick. His father had never said anything without a reason for it and he had ignored the warning.

"Don't be the trickster in the deck", of all his Papa's stories why did that have to be the one that had to come true?

He wished he'd listened closer, or that he would have realized what was happening sooner than he had. Then maybe he could have prevented what was happening now or, better yet, not have destroyed the old world.

Maybe Rythian was right. He was just as bad as Sjin was. His sins were too numerous to count…

No! He wasn't as bad as Sjin! At least he admitted that he had been wrong about….

Everything…

Sjin wouldn't admit he was wrong, he just blamed it on Duncan and other people when things went wrong. He never took responsibility for his actions.

At least he was admitting he was wrong and if Rythian didn't forgive him, he hoped that he understood, or, failing that, that Zoey would forgive him. If Rythian didn't at least understand he was dead and he'd have to face Zoey, and he didn't want her to torture him for the rest of eternity…

* * *

**Rythian: Am I going to get to kill Duncan?**

**A/N: HMMMMMM. Let me think about it... No.**

**Rythian: Can we kill Sjin?**

**A/N: I'll think about it. Anyway review, fallow, and favorite, or I'll set Rythian on you.**

**Rythian: *looks at vamprav* I don't kill innocents.**

**A/N: Shut up! They don't know that!**


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Herron sighed and glared at his brother. He hated that he'd had to knock him out for him to stop over reacting, normally. But for once he was actually grateful that he had rendered Rythian unconscious.

The brunet boy was downright unmanageable when he was angry, even more so when it was desperate anger. At least now he wasn't in as much pain from the sadness and grief that were weighing him down.

"Dorian!" The ebony haired boy called towards the sky. "Can you come get Ry? I'm going to check on the scientist he nearly killed."

"Yes, go right ahead." A breeze whispered in his ear.

Herron nodded and floated off of the ground. All three of the brothers could fly, either naturally or with an easy to make flying ring. Of course Herron couldn't use half his power when he was in the air, but it was a quick way to travel so he wasn't really complaining about it too much, just whining for the sake of being whiny. Besides, he could still use Ender-death and that could protect him from ender-men and those were the only real danger for him.

There was a castle in the distance, made of cold grey stone. Herron would never understand why people built with something as cold as stone, stones were smug people in general and they didn't enjoy company. The castle also gave off a mad scientist vibe that amused him.

Herron sped up and as he got closer he could hear the voices of the stones in his ears whispering but still there.

_"Too little, too late, that's what I'd say, but still better late than never. If he repents now Rythian might not kill him."_ One stone said.

_"Oh, shut up, you old toss-pot,"_ another snapped at him, _"Duncan gave us a nice home to guard and keep standing. It's not like he could have helped it you know. He felt threatened and he did what he could to protect himself, how was he supposed to know that sweet little red head was the ender-sister this turn round?"_

'Quite right.' Herron thought to himself. He'd already forgiven the scientist for what he had done to his brother.

Science wasn't easy and magic was more simple and down to earth but often times people forgot that science was still a very knew practice. It had only been around for a couple hundred years, while magic had been around for what felt like forever.

Actually magic had been around forever, ever since the beginning of time and the worlds were formed. Of course humans couldn't exactly use it at the time, they'd only figured out how to do that recently but it had still been there, ready to be of use.

The ender-borns had been using magic since the beginning but they tended to keep quiet about it because what was the use of being able to use magic if people lynched or burned you when they found out. Or rather, tried to lynch and burn you to death, that never worked because ender-borns were tough and just like the ender-sister they couldn't die unless it was in five specific ways.

Starvation, death by ender-dragon, dead in the End, the three ender-weapons, and being severed from their power… Well, the power one wasn't entirely true, but being severed from it made them into normal humans and they could die normal human deaths.

_"Hello, friends,"_ Herron said politely in stone speech when as he approached the castle, _"is the scientist in right now?"_

_"Who was that?"_ The first stone huffed importantly.

_"It was the earth-born ender, pea-brain."_ The second sighed, it sounded like she had to deal with this a lot from her neighbor. _"Yes, dearie,"_ she told Herron, _"but you won't get past that force-field he's got up right now."_

_"Okay, thank you."_ Herron said and floated up to the force-field.

"Hey, scientist, I need to talk to you!" He called.

…

Duncan was huddled by the top of his tower by the force-field controls, it was getting really dark out and he was starting to think that Rythian might not be coming for him.

That was both a blessing and a curse. It meant that Rythian might not kill him when he saw him next but it also meant that now Duncan was all alone with his thoughts, which wasn't always a good thing per say.

"Hey, scientist, I need to talk to you." A voice called out from the other side of the force-field.

Duncan gave a shriek and whirled around to come face to face with the boy who had confronted Rythian through the force-field.

"Hello." Duncan whispered. He was beyond nervous, even though Herron had saved him from death by purple magic it didn't mean that the purple-eyed boy wouldn't hesitate to kill or maim him now.

"Hey," Herron said, "you're Lalna, right?" He waited for Duncan's nod before he continued.

"Are you here to kill me?" The scientist asked nervously as he crept behind the wall to his right to try and avoid any oncoming attack, which was actually pretty stupid since the force-field would just absorb it and turn it into energy.

"What?" Herron scoffed. "No. I'm here to talk to you. Rythian will come to his senses once he has the sense to check for Zoey's connection. The idiot knows better, you check the contact first, and then if it's severed you check for a body. He's been around too many humans for too long and it's starting to affect his ability to control his powers properly and his ability to think like an ender-born. But if we take him back he won't as- as- what was that word… Assimilate! That's the word! Anyway he's been gone too long to assimilate correctly unless we have a human with him."

Duncan crept out slowly from behind the wall he was trying to hide behind. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Herron sighed. "Look, can we not talk about this with a force-field in the way, you sound weird like this and my magic is already starting to needle at me for being up in the air for too long."

"No," Duncan said, "I like the force-field right where it is."

"Alright, I'll just have to move then." Herron said and disappeared from outside the force-field.

Duncan's eyes went wide and he looked panicked as he looked around trying to find where the other boy had gone. He hadn't seen someone do that ever before, only ender-men should be able to do that.

"Now, that, that's done with." A voice said from behind Duncan. The scientist turned slowly to see Herron standing against the far wall. "I need you to come with me to help Ryth get back to his former power and healthy mind set."

Duncan backed up and shook his head slightly. "I- I can't. Rythian will kill me before I could get one word out." He said.

Herron's head tilted to the side slightly and he frowned. "You're scared of my brother killing you?" He asked. Duncan nodded. "He won't. Dorian won't let him, my brother already has too much weighing down is soul as it is."

"That won't stop him. I killed Zoey, that's all that matters to him. It doesn't matter that I didn't mean to do it or that I would have gladly teamed up with him to kill Sjin for the old world incident." Duncan told the taller boy. His blonde hair was hanging over his face but Herron could still see the sadness and grief shining in those deep blue eyes.

Those eyes were quite interesting to look at, they were like Rythian's had been before his ender-blood had been kick-started by an experiment to try and get rid of it. The blue went well with the blonde hair and white armor. He really was a pretty human and Herron was starting to like him.

"I won't let him kill you, Lalna. Besides it's been forever since we've had science in Ender-born Castle and we have absolutely no idea how to use complex stuff like that. Plus we're going to need help finding Zoey." Herron said.

Duncan's eyes widened at the last sentence. "Zoey's still alive?" He asked.

Herron nodded with a smile on his face. "Yup, we can still feel her pulse point through the ender-sister bond we formed with her, but, like I said, Rythian doesn't know that. My idiot of a little brother forgot to check before he went rampaging towards your castle and of course that means I'm going to have to talk some sense into him. Hopefully D can get him to calm down slightly before we get there or I may have to knock him out… again." Herron said.

"Okay…" Duncan said. "How are we getting to this castle of yours?"

Herron grinned in a way that made Duncan start to back up. "Teleportation of course!" He said bouncing on the balls of his feet.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Rythian opened his eyes to a black and purple painted ceiling. He blinked at it, he didn't remember going to sleep in his room at Ender-born Castle. All he remembered was talking to Herron. Why had he been talking to Herron? He hadn't talked to his second oldest brother in weeks, maybe months.

He remembered something about going after Duncan, but he had no reason to go after Duncan except maybe the nu-

The Nuke!

Blackrock Castle!

ZOEY!

Rythian's purple eyes blazed to life and his low growl of confusion turned into a full out roar of blind rage. He bolted out of the bed and launched himself at the door, clawing at it in an attempt to get out of the room, not even trying for the doorknob, his brothers would have locked it already.

He was more animal than human at the moment and he couldn't think straight. The only thing that was running through his mind was memories of Zoey and the crater that had been left when she tried to defuse the nuke.

Duncan had done it! Duncan had killed his sister! Duncan must pay for his actions! Duncan! Duncan! Duncan!

"DUNCAN!" The enraged ender-born screamed through the door as he tried to claw through the wood.

…

"DUNCAN!"

Duncan jumped and whirled around to look for who had yelled for him. Both of the ender-borns in front of him stiffened. They sighed in unison.

"Damn." Dorian said in a flat voice. "I was hoping he'd stay in that sleep longer. Now we are going to have to rush this." He turned to the scientist. "I'm about to activate something in your blood that will probably hurt quite a bit, but you cannot _scream_. Do you hear me? It will just mess it up if you scream and then we'll have to do it again. Do you understand?"

Duncan nodded to the older boy as Herron headed for the stairs behind the scientist. They were in a large hall that resembled an entrance hall. It had obsidian pillars and a bedrock floor with a weird stone ascent that Duncan couldn't quite place. Banners hung on either side, they were portraits of the past owners of the castle and one banner stuck out conspicuously.

Duncan couldn't stop looking at it. It hung directly over the door and portrayed someone that looked very familiar. It was a boy unlike the others portrayed on the other cloths.

His skin was very pale in a way that made it look like he was glowing, not in the normal glowing complexion way either, his skin was like the full-moon on harvest night. His hair was a dark black like ink, not the ender-man color that the other black-haired boys on the walls had. He wore a dark-blue t-shirt with a light gold trim unlike the other boys who all wore either black or purple the same shade as their eyes. That was the last thing that drew his eyes to the boy above the oak front doors, his eyes weren't that purple color that the other's had, his eyes were a deep sea-glass blue.

The boy looked all and all completely and utterly human and it puzzled him as to why his portrait was hanging up in Ender-born Castle.

Dorian glanced at where the human in front of him was looking. "That's The Last Mate." He said as he laid one hand on Duncan's shoulder. He was trying to distract the young scientist from the pain that was about to be inflicted upon him.

"Who was he?" Duncan asked.

"Well, he was The Last Mate of an Ender-born to survive until the Ender-borns found them. Story goes-"he began the telling of the tale as he began to activate the latent blood in Duncan. "-that the mates could bear children no matter their gender, that's why they are never portrayed below the shoulders. But this particular mate was the only one to ever go into battle all the others all wanted to stay home, this was all before the dragon decided to kill us off and the only easy way of doing that is killing our mates, we kill ourselves if we can't save them after the Mating. Now, The Last Mate got into an argument with his mate over-"Duncan sank to the floor and the older boy fallowed.

Dorian was rather impressed, the kid wasn't screaming and looked like he was trying to listen to the story and understanding. This boy was strong, he would have made a good Ender-born, but the latent blood wasn't that of the End, it was something else.

"-weather or not to go fight in the battle against the ender-men on our border, and ended up going off to sulk in the nursery. The ender-borns went off and fought in the battle but it soon became apparent that the ender-men were just stalling for time so they rushed back to the castle. It was carnage." Dorian paused and took his hand off of Duncan's shoulder to check if it worked.

Duncan was looking up at him expectantly. "What happened?" He asked.

"All the mated ender-borns collapsed in grief, the only ones left untouched were the unmated and the mate of The Last. The Last's ender-born ran to the nursery and The Last was still alive but dieing fast. He'd hidden all of the children in the panic room and refused to show the ender-men where they were. He died in his ender-born's arms, he was pregnant too, but he saved the six different mates children. That's why he is hanging above the arch, he didn't care about his own safety, he just ensured that the children were safe. If he hadn't done that Herron, Rythian, and I wouldn't be here today. But ever since he died we haven't been able to find our mates before the ender-men get to them."

There was silence for a few minutes as Duncan tried to orient himself to the fact that his eyes could see more than they normally could. If he concentrated enough he could focus on seeing what he normally saw but that just made his eyes hurt. He huffed in annoyance.

Dorian chuckled. "Try relaxing your eyes." He said. When Duncan gave him a confused look he chuckled again. "Your brain will handle the extra information fine, you just need to relax and not force it."

Dorian was right, if Duncan just relaxed his eyes his brain compensated just fine and the swirling colors around Dorian faded to a slight shading around the outline of the ender-born's body.

"What is it?" He asked as he kept the muscles around his eyes relaxed.

Dorian hummed. "I'm not quite sure… I activated any latent creature blood you might have had but I've never seen anyone with this type of blood before. It looks like it might be dragon blood actually, not ender-dragon blood either. If this is what I think it is, it is something quite a bit older than she is."

Then Rythian came charging down the stairs and froze.

**A/N: Haha! I'm evil. ;) Review!**

**Oh and a vote should Duncan end up with:**

**Rythian,**

**Herron,**

**Or, Both**


	6. SOPA

SOPA

There is a new act going through. It is called SOPA. SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Acts. In this case, all fanart will be deleted, all fan-pages, fanfics, fan made videos, etc. Please help stop SOPA.

There is a petition at: .gov/petition/stop-sopa-2014/q0Vkk0Zr

The petition will be up until March 19, 2014.


	7. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The desert was beyond hot and the girl was beginning to sweet under her robe. Why she'd worn a big, black robe in the desert the girl didn't know.

She tried to move her right arm to rub her left shoulder and nothing happened, at all. Then she remembered why she was wearing the cloak and sighed to herself.

Having one arm blown off was not fun, nor was having to deal with only having one arm for an extended period of time. She could confirm that with the past couple of days that she'd had to deal with said blown off arm. But she shouldn't complain too much, she could have died in the explosion or from blood lose.

She was lucky that she had managed to stop the bleeding in time before she fell unconscious, but she had still lost her arm and she had no idea where she was. "I need to make a new arm." The girl commented.

She crested a hill and looked down into a small valley in the sand to see a village sitting in the bottom. The girl sagged in relief, it was true that the villagers were rather generic but the village offered shelter and access to supplies, at least. Here was where she could make a replacement arm, it wouldn't be as good as her original but it would have to do.

If she was carful she might be able to make it into more than just a basic grabbing appendage and add weapons or some useful tools to the arm. A new and improved arm would help out immensely.

…

Duncan stared at the ender-born at the bottom of the stares, he looked different in the scientist's new eyesight. The swirls of black and purple around the dark teen's body were confused and jumbled. Rythian's natural darkness was all jumbled up in a mass of green and blue that Duncan instinctively knew shouldn't be there.

The boy in front of him was an ender-born, not a human. Those strands of essence should be banished from the mage. The middle world had no place in this place of darkness and power.

Duncan stood and cocked his head, waiting for the ender-born to speak. "Wh-what?" Rythian finally managed to stutter out. "Wicked!" Herron yelled as he ran past his younger brother to pull the confused and slightly disoriented scientist into a hug. "I knew something would happen but I never thought you'd be part dragon! This is awesome! You'll be able to scent out Zoey! We won't have to spend so much time looking for her!"

"Z-Zoey's alive." Rythian spluttered as Herron swung the part dragon around in circles much to Dorian's annoyance.

"Yes, you great, dunder head! That's what we have been trying to get into your thick scull for the past day and a half!" The eldest ender-born yelled. "And while we are on the subject! What is wrong with you?! You must have at least scented the dragon scent on him! Or are you just that thick! You know dragons are territorial! And you decided to just stride into his territory and leave a note! It's no wonder he responded the way he did! Dragon blood is amazingly strong! Even if it wasn't fully activated it would have caused problems! You're lucky you didn't take any of his stuff by accident! That would have been worst! Are you suicidal?! Because if you are you are going to be locked up here until we find Zoey! I am not burying another family member!"

Duncan saw Rythian get angry. It was like watching a tidal wave swell and get ready to attack. First, all the emotion in the ender-born's face drained away and the green/blue in his aura condensed into a tiny ball of anger. Then, it exploded.

"YOU BROUGHT AN ENDER-DRAGON HERE! OUR ONLY SAFE HAVEN! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! HE'LL KILL US ALL IN HIS SLEEP!"

"I didn't say he was an ender-dragon."

"WHAT ELSE COULD HE BE! HUH, DORIAN! WHAT WERE YOU TO THINKING BRINGING THE ENEMY HERE!"

"I am not your enemy, Rythian." Duncan said and everyone froze. His voice was smooth before but now it had a rough edge to it and was now quite a bit deeper. The three other boys in the room shivered and Herron slowly lowered the younger boy to the ground. "I never was. Sjin was the one who began the war on the old world. I would have helped you kill him if you had come to me for help but I was left powerless after the old world blew, like we all were. I had to rebuild and then you entered my domain and I overreacted. I apologize for that, but I had planned to disable the nuke after a few weeks but then it blew and I thought you had moved house because when I went to check on it, your body wasn't there and you weren't clearing rubble I just assumed the wiring had overheated and there was a misfire of some sort. Zoey was at my castle, that's true, but I just thought she was curious and trying to make it on her own with Teep."

A shiver traveled up Rythian's spine as the strands of middle world essence tried to take a hold of the young ender-born. The darkness was fighting it back but the strands of middle world essence were embedded deep inside the mages aura. He really had been in the middle world for way too long.

Then the blue and green strands started to overwhelm the ender-born's natural darkness. That was a warning sign.

"Herron, don't take anything Rythian is about to do personally." Duncan said quickly and then the half mad boy lunged for his brother.

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" The ender-born yelled. Duncan's movements were too fast for the human eye to see, but suddenly the dragon had Rythian against the wall and was growling deep in his throat.

"I am pretty sure you shouldn't have the middle world all tangled in your magic." Duncan said and then called behind him. "Am I right about that Dorian?"

"Yes. While most ender-born's choose to live in the middle world very few of our people actually internalize it, even when our blood isn't active, it's just not safe. Our natural darkness fights it and that causes problems and… mood swings." The elder said.

Duncan cocked his head to look at the boy who had gone limp under his touch. The middle world strands were calming down slightly and beginning to separate from the mage's aura. "Yep, that matches up with what I'm seeing right now." He commented and watched in curiosity as a strand of the middle world essence separated from Rythian's aura at a painstakingly slow pace. "Interesting." He muttered.

Although Duncan had a new set of instincts he was still a scientist at heart so when he took his hands away from the mage and he started thrashing to get past the slightly shorter boy Duncan deduced what was going on. He slammed his hands down on the mage's chest, he stopped struggling.

"Well, looks like he's staying with me while we are down on the middle world, my new… powers… magic… whatever seems to be naturalize the effects of the middle world on Rythian." Duncan said absently.


	8. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Sjin smiled as Sips gave him a nod, the pale man was doing paperwork as his usual sluggish pace. The brown haired man opened the chest in the corner and placed his pickaxe and shovel on top of the pile gently.

"We should really start organizing our stuff." Sips commented. Sjin nodded and started to sort through the chest and put the different items in sections.

It wasn't what Sips had said but Sjin knew it was what he actually wanted from him. Sjin had figured out a long time ago how to tell the difference between what the paler man said and what he actually wanted. It was a bit difficult but Sjin had perfected the art.

The crown on his head hummed to itself as it sat dormant in the man's subconscious and watched the thoughts around it. The pale man was interesting, a true business man with no real interest in anything besides money and how his business was run. He also wasn't interested in _it,_ he already had a diamond helm.

The crown shrugged it off, the man would either take interest or he wouldn't, it really didn't matter one way or the other. _It_ was already gathering strength inside the weak minded Sjin. Almost without notice _it_ flexed one of his hands for him. The crown grinned to itself as the human shrugged the flex of fingers off as muscle spasm.

"Nice crown." Sips commented. "Where did you find it?"

Sjin smiled happily, his boss had just given him an indirect complement. If he complemented the crown which Sjin had found he was complimenting Sjin's ability to find things for him. "Oh, it was buried in a patch of dirt near a lava pit." He said.

"Anything else nearby?" Sips asked. Sjin hummed, there might have been but he was completely focused on the crown at the time. But he had seen one other thing.

"There was a chest there as well. I think." He said, trying to remember.

"Show me." The pale, vampire like man told his laky.

That was why Sjin was now sitting by while Sips looked through the chest and giving approving little nods. Sips tossed an iron ring at him and Sjin caught it.

"Your share." The man said and went back to dealing with the chest. Sjin smiled and slipped the ring on.

The crown smiled, the other half or its power had just been solidified.

'_Great. Now let's get started shall we._' The crown whispered to itself and it made Sjin smirk.

**Poll: Should Duncan end up with Rythian or Herron?**


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